Palestinians look to US to break peace process deadlock

Palestinians are looking to Washington to help break the deadlock with Israel in the peace process as their Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas began a flurry of diplomacy which will culminate in talks at the White House.

Talks between Abbas and his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon broke up on Sunday local time without any commitment from Israel to release more Palestinian prisoners from its jails while demands for troop withdrawals from the West Bank also shelved.

Mr Abbas arrived on Monday local time in Egypt, where he was expected to hold afternoon talks with President Hosni Mubarak.

His Cairo visit was the first leg in a round of meetings, which will also take him to Jordan before arriving in Washington for talks with US President George W Bush on Friday.

Ahmed Qorei, the Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament, said the White House would be urged to intervene and prevent the peace process outlined in the US-backed plan, known as the roadmap, from crumbling.

"Israel has tried to attach conditions that we find unacceptable and we will see what the Americans have to say about that," Mr Qorei said, who will accompany Mr Abbas to Washington.

Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr for his part said the Palestinians would ask Mr Bush to make a clear statement "demanding that the building of the separation fence and settlement activity be halted, and that the siege on President Arafat be lifted".

Palestinian analyst Ali Jerbawi predicted the US visit, Mr Abbas' first to Washington, would be crunch time for the blueprint.

"Either the roadmap will be implemented or it won't ... if the US does not push Israel, we are heading back to the vicious circle of negotiations which led to this situation," he said.

The United States is one of the co-sponsors, along with the United Nations, European Union and Russia, of the roadmap, which aims to create an independent Palestinian state by 2005.

The issue of Palestinian prisoners has proved to be the main stumbling block between the two sides, with Israel so far approving the release of just 350 of an estimated 6,000 detainees.

The Palestinians had been hoping Mr Sharon would give more ground on the issue at his meeting with Mr Abbas in a bid to bolster the latter's position in the face of Palestinian critics.

But instead the two sides merely agreed to form a joint committee to discuss the issue, featuring Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Minister Hisham Abdelrazeq and Avi Dichter, the head of Israel's Shin Beth security service.

Mr Abdelrazeq said Israel must accept input from the Palestinians over the names and numbers of releases and not try to dictate terms.

"If this is the intention of the Israeli Government, a meeting on this subject would not make any sense," the minister told Israeli public radio.

Some 200 Palestinians staged a sit-in on Monday local time, in front of the Red Cross headquarters in Gaza City, calling on Abu Mazen "not to sign any agreement with Israel without including as a condition the release of all Palestinian prisoners".

The Palestinians were also hoping at Sunday's meeting for commitments from Israel on further troop withdrawals in the West Bank after pullbacks in the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem in recent weeks as well as a removal of army checkpoints.

But there was again no agreement, with the issue also farmed out to a committee, despite the Palestinians' insistence that they were ready to assume control.

Palestinian Minister of State for Security Affairs Mohammad Dahlan and Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz are expected to discuss the withdrawals after Mr Dahlan's return from Washington, where he will also accompany Mr Abbas.

There has been a marked downturn in violence since a security agreement between the two sides three weeks ago which led to the pullback of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem.

That agreement was followed shortly afterwards by the announcement by major Palestinian groups they would observe a three-month truce in their campaign of anti-Israeli attacks.

However, unrest has not completely disappeared, highlighted by the fatal shooting of a Palestinian in an exchange of fire with the Israeli army east of the West Bank town on Jenin overnight.

The Israeli army also said that six Palestinians were arrested in Nablus on Monday morning local time, after an explosive device was spotted with wires sticking out of a bag.